Now, before I begin; a little disclaimer: This is a difficult hack to do. I am not responsible if you fry your controller, Xbox 360, or whatever else. That being said, I will hack your controller for you, for a fee.

Step 1: Remove the housing. There are 6 screws visible on the back of the controller, plus one under the serial number sticker. Discard the buttons, pull off the analog sticks by pulling straight up, and disconnect the vibration motors.

Step 2: Remove the white triggers from their black plastic housing. This requires some effort (be careful!) but is neccessary. Once you have the triggers removed, you will need to cut away some of the black plastic to get at the solder points underneath. You will need these for the LB and RB buttons. I have circled the solder points in yellow, they are the same for the other button as well.

Step 4: Preparing A, B, X, Y, Start, Back, and Xbox buttons. Now, as far as I can tell, there is no common ground on this controller, so you will need two wires per button. Take the Dremel with wire wheel, set it to a low speed, and apply a gentle pressure to the black semi-circle for each button. This takes some practice to get the needed pressure and angle of the wire wheel right. Just be careful, and don't bare down too hard. Once you can see a good strip of copper where the black used to be, stop. After you finish the semi-circles, clean the area with alcohol and a Q-tip.

Step 5: Preparing the directions. This is the hard part. As you can see in the picture, the direction switches are designed differently. You can't just remove the black to get to copper underneath. However, if you look closer, there are two black dots on either side of each direction. These will be your solder points. There is copper undeath each little black dot, you can see I have circled them in yellow. You have to be careful at this stage so you do not wreck other parts of the controller. You can remove the black substance using the Dremel and wire wheel, just as before. Once that's done, you will be left with 8 tiny solder points.

Those tiny solder points for the directionals are exactly why I paid HarumaN to do this hack for me. I've already ruined one $30 controller, no need to ruin another one when there are professionals available.

This is a good write up so far, looking forward to seeing the final results.

Step 6: Now that all the points are prepared, apply some solder to each point. You don't need a lot, and you need to make sure that you don't create any shorts. Next, start wiring... I find it easier if I "pre-tin" each wire before soldering it. I apply some solder directly to the wire, and then solder the wire to the solder point on the PCB.

Step 6: Now that all the points are prepared, apply some solder to each point. You don't need a lot, and you need to make sure that you don't create any shorts. Next, start wiring... I find it easier if I "pre-tin" each wire before soldering it. I apply some solder directly to the wire, and then solder the wire to the solder point on the PCB.

This is exactly what I did wrong. I pre-tinned the iron and wire, but never thought of just putting a dab of solder on the pcb to connect to. I think my tip was a little big for the project as well. Another case of making things tougher by not having the right tools for the job.

This was a great little tutorial, and I'll definitely use some of these tips if I ever try it again for myself.

Step 6: Now that all the points are prepared, apply some solder to each point. You don't need a lot, and you need to make sure that you don't create any shorts. Next, start wiring... I find it easier if I "pre-tin" each wire before soldering it. I apply some solder directly to the wire, and then solder the wire to the solder point on the PCB.

This is exactly what I did wrong. I pre-tinned the iron and wire, but never thought of just putting a dab of solder on the pcb to connect to. I think my tip was a little big for the project as well. Another case of making things tougher by not having the right tools for the job.

This was a great little tutorial, and I'll definitely use some of these tips if I ever try it again for myself.

Yeah, my method takes some time to do... but I've never had anyone return a hacked controller.

can at least some of the buttons be paired down, so there aren't so many connections?

There may be. I just did a visual inspection, I didn't do a thorough check with a multi-meter. I decided to save myself the hassle and just do two wires per button/direction. I know for a fact that there is not one single common ground (which would have been nice, but oh well).

Wow, that was a great writeup! Except that I have no idea what you accomplished.

Well, you know Xbox 360 has the whole Xbox Live Arcade thing. You can download classic arcade games and play offline or online with/against other people on Xbox Live. I've been playing SFII online against people, and the Xbox 360 controller sux. So why not build your own arcade style controls to play Xbox Live Arcade games with?

What kind of stick are you using for SFII on XBLA? Also, how does the stick work with four way XBLA games like Ms. Pac Man and Dig Dug?

I'll be using a Happ Competition. I'll let you know how it works with 4-ways once I get it put together, but it's almost 100% for SFII and C:SotN. Pac Man and Dig Dug will be played on my cabinet using either an Ultimate 360 or Randy's new 49-way.

Thanks for the fantastic tutorial! With the arrival of Virtua Fighter 5 on the xbox I've been getting interested in building a stick, how much would you charge for the board?

$35 for the wired hack plus $5 shipping to the US. Also, to save time and shipping costs on your end, I could pick up a new wired controller, and for that I would charge actual cost (not sure how much that is at the moment.) Let me know!

In case anyone was interested, total cost (including a wired controller to sacrifice for the hack) is $80 shipped to the US. Other countries, contact me for shipping. I take PayPal, funded however you need.